We’ve all seen the PC vs Mac ads by Apple, there are plenty of them. But now it’s time for the PC to counterattack, with the help of director Laurie McGuinness, who created four small hilarious clips, with the same character personalities (the PC being older, “boring”, and the Mac being younger and cooler), but this time the Mac doesn’t get the spotlight. What I liked about the clips is that they’re not made in order to harm the Mac, and they don’t deny the qualities portraied in the Mac ads, but they observe the PC’s own qualities, without denying the Mac’s. So, without more description, here are the clips:

My first impression was “Wow.”. Some time ago I’ve shown you some pics of Rune Larsen’s two concept phones, and I mentioned that the smaller one would be close to impossible to manufacture, with today’s technology. Well, Rune didn’t give up and he continued his designing, and now he released the “Crystal Phone”, which is amazing, but I don’t see any way it could be fabricated. On your right is a new picture of the Tiny Phone, all white and better designed than the first black pics. And below you can watch the Crystal Phone. As slim as a credit card, this is an awesome concept, but, unfortunately, it’s close to impossible to fabricate.

I’m officially a fan of Rune’s work, and hopefully his designs will get more and more “doable” as time passes. Here are more pics of the Crystal Phone, this time in colour:

While on a visit in Romania, where Bill Gates participated in the celebration of 10 years since the Microsoft branch has been running there, and the launch of Vista, Microsoft’s president declared that, with the right amount of administration, the new Vista could run life support systems in hospitals. Here is a fragment from the interview:

Journalist: Let’s imagine a hospital where life support systems are running Vista. Would you trust it with your life?

Bill Gates: Security has been the top priority for Microsoft for quite some time and that’s why I put out a key call for us to focus on that in a very big way over three years ago, and that’s why we’ve made investments like having people from Gecad ( Romanian company ) join on the security action from Microsoft. The answer to your question is that, absolutely, Vista is the most secure operating system we’ve ever done, and if it’s administred properly, absolutely, it can be used to run a hospital or any kind of mission crytical thing. But it’s not as simple as saying “If you use Vista, that happens automatically”. The issues about patient records and who should be able to see them, the issue about setting up a network, so that authorized people can connect up to that hospital network, the issue about having backup power, so that the computer systems can run even if the generators go down. There are a lot of issues to properly set up that system, so that you have the redundancy and the security walls to make sure it fullfils that very crytical function. So we are working with partners to raise their skills to make sure that when get involved in an installation like that they can make it secure. So I feel better about Vista than any other operating system, but there’s a lot of things that need to be done well, and we’re certaintly committed to step up and make sure these security issues are ieasier and better understood.

This could be the truth or it could be one man’s opinion. You can download the above segment of the interview here. (Big thanks to Alex Radescu for the recording)

But the real question that I must ask is this: Would YOU put your life in Vista’s hands? Do you trust it enough?

Yes, it is cool, despite the fact that it doesn’t rely on gadgets, and stuff that we seem to rely on nowadays. The only bad thing is that it’s not real, yet. It is the product of an ingenious designer called Rune Larsen. If the name rings a bell, he is the same person that designed the Tiny phone – the one not much larger than a toothpick. But, despite the earlier version, this is much more realistic when it comes to building it. There’s much more room for the battery, microphone, antenna, and the other essential stuff you can find inside a phone.

According to the inventor, the phone is equipped like a 1996 one (I wish I had one of these back in 1996). It is 5.5 centimeters tall closed, and 9 centimeters open.

In a world dominated by the arrival of the iPhone, I must say that, given the choice, I’d buy one of these in a heartbeat, just for the fun of having it. Here are some other photos of the older phone (Tiny Phone), and the Eclipse Phone. (click to enlarge).

Yeah, you can also build your own iPhone. No IT genius required, just some ingenuity, …and perhaps some scissors, transparent duct tape and a cool printer. Yeah, a printer, because this isn’t the real iPhone, but rather a cardboard mockup. Here’s some photos of mine, in different stages of progress:Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever found yourself wanting to play a prank on somebody, but the traditional methods just aren’t available, or aren’t enough? If you’re the kind of guy I am, I bet you did. But again, if you’re anything like I am, you won’t give up so easy. So here’s some of the funniest pranks you can play on your friends, colleagues, even parents or neighbours. Read the rest of this entry »

After Etherfast presented the world’s smallest PC, we were invaded with comments and feedback. One of them linked to what I am going to present.

It’s called Jack PC, and it can fit into a network wall port. Just plug your keyboard, mouse and monitor into the wall. The Jack PC runs Windows CE and it’s equipped with an equivalent of a 800MHz to 1.2GHz x86 desktop processor.

The Jack PC comes in 3 models, ranging from �209 to �349, and it’s produced by a company in Israel, called Chip PC Technologies. So, if you’re fed up with your big old PC, you can always get a replacement the size of a small box, or one that can fit into your wall. Below are several pictures of the latter. (Note: If you enlarge them, please be patient). Read the rest of this entry »

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